The Invisible Primaries – Crystal Ball’s “Magnificent Seven in ’07”
Sure, you’ve heard of the Iowa Caucuses, the New Hampshire Primary, and so on. But 2008’s first presidential pre-nomination contests are already underway, and have been for a long (and we’d argue, too long) time. They’re the “invisible” primaries, and for better or worse, we in the pundit class get to throw in our votes.
The concept of the “invisible primary,” first advanced by journalist Arthur Hadley in 1976, has since been referenced liberally to describe the early pre-voting stages of presidential nomination campaigns. The Crystal Ball would argue that the sometimes-awkward adolescent stages of these races are actually best characterized as a series of ongoing phantom battles, in which no votes are cast, but the ups and downs of the larger war can be quantified by a variety of other metrics.
This century’s invisible primaries are no longer just the much-hyped races for cash, poll support, and staff; they’re also races for now-necessary campaign accoutrements such as online networking presences. They take center stage in the national news for entire years before the first votes are cast if only because they’re all the entertainment we have! Is it healthy to be paying so much attention to these factors so early and for so long? Of course not, but until 2008 arrives, they will remain political facts of life.
And just as the frontloading craze dictates our calendar of real primaries, our increasing tendency towards a permanent campaign cycle frontloads the progression of invisible primaries. There are myriad reasons 2008 is a campaign on steroids, but the combination of an earlier, faster lineup of state primaries and caucuses and a lame duck administration has turned the nation’s gaze to the jockeying of both Democratic and GOP contenders more quickly than even we thought possible. It’s as if an inverse relationship between presidential approval and the popularity of the 2008 campaign has taken hold: the less appreciation voters have for Bush, the more eager they are to shop for his successor.
Need proof of campaign acceleration since 2004? Ask yourself this question: how nationally recognizable a figure was Howard Dean in May of 2003? If initial Time Magazine cover appearances are any guidepost, Dean’s surge made him a household name in August of that year. Having appeared on the cover as a political phenomenon in October 2006, Barack Obama is ten months ahead of schedule. And don’t even get us started on how much the financial picture has changed in four years: suffice it to say leading contenders in 2007 are currently raising sums two and three times larger than those of their 2003 counterparts.
So while we wait for the real votes to be cast in the real primaries of January and February 2008, let’s take stock of how the fields of Democratic and Republican hopefuls are doing in the battles of 2007. Remember, taken together, these pre-contests can be useful indicators of candidates’ accumulation of strengths and resources in the run-up to next year’s marathon. Just don’t be fooled: a candidate may generate plenty of noise in an invisible primary, but nominations are decided by delegate shares, not decibel levels. Here are the Crystal Ball’s picks for the top seven invisible primaries of 2007–and we hope you find them simply “out of sight.”